I love using the met service BUT what really annoys me is the predictions of, for example, rain in the afternoon never usually matches when I scroll down to see roughly when and how much rain there will be . Are there two separate met service employees doing to separate predictions ???

Its completely collapsed at the moment , but typical of this lot , dont even respond to emails when You can get thru

Metservice have been down for 10 hours today, which included a tornado in our back yard. Not what you expect from a public service. Please explain.

Over 4 months later, and the website’s performance hasn’t markedly improved. It’s still essentially inaccessible during significant weather events (when it’s most needed).

Good to see they are investing in capacity but I’d say they got caught with some bugs. I got this from another weather forum – someone who spoke to the CEO of MetService. Looks like a refresh of the look and feel is coming too.

‘Have just received a message from Paul Reid, CEO of Metservice re: the web site which is self-explanatory – improvement is just around the corner:

“Hi Peter, thanks and we know. The website has been under pressure for the last 10 months so we have just spent a lot of $$$ doing a full re-architecture of the back end. That went live last week, after extensive testing, and should triple the capacity, HOWEVER. There are a number of bugs that were not found during testing. A number of them relate to hardware. New servers will be installed and working by noon today. Hopefully the other problems are fixed by tonight. With an approaching weather front we will revert to the old system tonight if it‚Äôs not working. This will limit the amount of visitors we can handle and you will be redirected to the backup site with basic information.

I know this does not solve everything but hopefully the issues you have experienced will be fixed shortly. The next step is to redesign the front end to make it more user friendly, however this is at least 10 months away.

Feel free to use these comments on any weather forum you belong to.

Regards

Paul”

For all of the people complaining about performance of metservice.co.nz, let me make a small comparison:

Think of it as rush hour traffic – sure, we can build 10 line motorways going both directions – and then the traffic will be flowing freely even during the rush hour. But the cost is prohibitive, and arguably these money would be better spent else where. Same principles apply here – and as with many things in life it is a trade off. There are plenty of other sources where you can look up the weather forecast (teletext, nzherald.co.nz – the list is endless…).

And to the MetService – thank you guys for doing a great job and being a source of valuable information!

Good responses today from Wellington region. But maybe you should move your new systems to Auckland – thats where the populuation is and most of the rainy weather. But certainly is way better now anyway.

I’m sorry Mr Turner your comment that Metservice have “been working like crazy” just doesn’t wash any more. The same problems arose during last years South Island snow storms and for events prior to that.

Come clean. Metservice you are under funded and under resourced, the sooner you and NIWA get merged the better for the NZ public. It would be a much more efficient use of funds.